7 September 2009

Cats have nine lives don’t they? Little boys have only one life, yet think themselves immortal. This is the story of the parachuting cat! Ron and Bryn had been reading comics detailing the derring-do of our heroic soldiers in the Second World War. That war started seventy years ago this week on September 3rd 1939 when England declared war on Germany.

Cats have nine lives don’t they? Little boys have only one life, yet think themselves immortal. This is the story of the parachuting cat!

Ron and Bryn had been reading comics detailing the derring-do of our heroic soldiers in the Second World War. That war started seventy years ago this week on September 3rd 1939 when England declared war on Germany.

The war had been over for a good few years when our intrepid boy soldiers undertook an experiment which, in those days before political correctness reared its ugly head, seemed quite normal. In those days little boys existed on a diet of banana butties, walked around with sheath knives attached to their snake belts and looked forward to the day when they could themselves be heroes of England and save the world from evil tyrants.

The story the boys had been reading about concerned the brave deeds that trained animals undertook during the two World Wars. Dogs were used to deliver messages, homing pigeons brought news from far behind enemy lines and even dolphins were being trained to locate submarines.

Alas our intrepid brothers didn’t have a dog or a pigeon and weren’t quite sure what a dolphin looked like but were of the opinion that maybe one day they could catch one in the streams on Chorlton Meadows (this was well before the meadows were turned into a refuse tip). One thing they did have though was a cat!

Realising that a cat wouldn’t be much good at bringing news to the troops behind the lines they realised that one thing a cat was good at was landing on its feet. No matter how high a cat was on a wall, if it fell off it always landed the right way round. The boys then assumed that a cat had a natural head for heights, for they’d seen cats high up in trees obviously enjoying themselves until the nasty firemen arrived and tried to take them down.

They knew that cats enjoyed climbing trees for every time a cat saw them approaching and spotted the bows and arrows in their hands the cat was so pleased to see them that it headed for the trees just to show them how clever it was! Ron remembered a tale in one of his comics about the parachute brigade and how the first men to be trained had done their training at Ringway Airport (Manchester International to any newcomers to the area).

At this very moment Ron’s cat came strolling into the house and in a Eureka moment Ron knew just what to do. Carefully closing the doors the two brothers went upstairs and started rummaging around in their mother’s room until they found a silk headscarf. At first Bryn wasn’t sure just what Ron intended until Ron threw the scarf in the air and it slowly floated down to the floor. In perfect harmony and as in one voice they both said, "Parachute."

The cat was obviously consulted on its roll in this amazing experiment and accompanied the boys willingly up the stairs and submitted itself to the ignominy of having three silk scarves and two yards of mother’s best knitting-wool fastened around its body. Nobody was really sure just what the cat was thinking as it was lifted high up to the landing ceiling and dangled precariously over the gap between the banisters and the hallway beneath.

With the all encompassing magic word of "Geronimo!" echoing in its furry little ears the cat was launched into space to become the first cat ever in the whole wide world to make a parachute jump. Well, perhaps not a real jump as it was more of a launch into the great unknown that was otherwise know as ‘downstairs’. Dear reader I would have loved to tell you that the cat sailed slowly downward with a grin like its proverbial Cheshire cousin.

It would have been great to state that the cat descended in slow-motion just like the Bionic Man did when he was running really quickly. Or even to be able to let you know that the cat, caught on a sudden inrush of air from an open window floated serenely outside drifting along on thermal currents to eventually end up hundreds of miles away in Catagonia where the natives were so amazed that they worshipped it as a god and the cat lived a long and fruitful life and died in its sleep many years later after fathering hundreds of kittens.

Alas, the best laid plans of boys and cats did not result in such a happy ending as the cat hurtled to the floor in a flurry of silk, wool and fur and landed with a thump on the lino before somehow shaking off its parachute harness and making a beeline for the best net curtains in the front room. It finally anchored itself by teeth and claw in such a way to the nets that it took the boys two hours to get it down and then had to explain to their mother just what had happened to her favourite curtains which had only been washed and put up that very morning.

"Proves one thing," said the brothers to one of their gang the next day, "cats are useless at parachuting but at least it landed on its feet. Now if we get enough silk scarves we could fit you up with a parachute. Hey, come back we’ll get it right this time!"

Alas our parachuting cat is no more and the meadows have just about reached maturity after the vandalism inflicted on it by the council all those years ago. Chorlton Meadows are home to a wide variety of flora and fauna and let’s hope they stay that way for many years to come as any attempt to create another act of vandalism must be rebuffed at all costs.